46 Geology as a means of culture — A. Winchell. 
tion, as the term itself implies, consists in such ti'aining of the 
human powers — but more especially the intellectual faculties — as 
will make them of greatest service to their possessor. If this 
expression means exclusively culture, and does not involve the 
acquisition of useful knowledge, it should at least be said that 
the acquisition of knowledge is one of the incidents of culture, 
and hence culture ought to be so sought as to involve the at- 
tainment of useful knowledge. For the present, however, the 
writer wishes to contemplate the purely cultural aspect of ed- 
ucation, and to inquire how geological studies stand related to 
processes of pure culture. 
In order that one's faculties may become most serviceable, 
they must acquire as far as possible, alertness, effectiveness and 
readiness. In other words, they must act with facility and ra- 
pidity ; they must accomplish a large volume of their appropriate 
results in a given time, and must be ever ready to enter into 
action. They must be like a team which is quick, strong, and 
in harness. 
What in detail, do educators contemplate when they speak 
of culture? What are the several powers whose alertness,, 
effectiveness and readiness are best promoted by best culture? 
This is equivalent to asking what are the powers by whose 
most perfect activity we achieve most successfully the work al- 
lotted to us? The obvious answer is, all the powers by which 
a human agent seeks his ends — powers physical^ powers intel- 
lectual and powers ethical. Let us restrict the inquiry, for the 
time being, to the powers intellectual. We will contemplate 
then, for the present, pure intellectual culture. 
The term culture is much employed by, a class of writers and 
speakers who extol lines of study demanding the exercise 
especially of verbal memory., and the power of compari- 
son and analysis. The verbal memory is the faculty of retain- 
ing and recalling mere words. It is the means of acquiring 
names and of speaking them on occasion. It fixes phrases and 
quotations, and puts us in possession of them. It seizes on the 
words and forms of a foreign language, and makes them per- 
manently ours. It is the spring of the faculty of verbal utter- 
ance; it confers effective power of expression. Its function 
extends to the retention of dates and other numerical expres- 
